Category: Chatter

97. Tulips

Having photography as a hobby sometimes yields pictures that can be used to create more pictures.  I decided to give up the no-lines approach for now (though it is a great exercise to learn how to make shapes – I was just really frustrated by what I was doing), do some pencil roughing, and then work one color area at a time.  First the tulips in shades of red, orange, and yellow, mixing some oranges as I went.  Next, the greens of leaves and stems, consciously determining the areas to negative paint later on, as for the flower petals.  Finally, the bowl.  Before the whole was done, I went back to each area and tried to create a sense of depth by deepening other areas and being careful not to touch the areas I had left deliberately white.

Mission

We went to visit the La Purisima Mission nearby in Lompoc, California.  It’s a state park which is a rebuild of the mission itself, which was destroyed in the 1812 earthquake.  The mission rebuild was part of the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s during the Depression.  This is from a photo of the roof.  The perspective is off, and it’s a bit muddy, but it was a lot of fun trying to figure out how to make the color for the curved tiles.

Lines & Shades

Once more, the house is in total disarray – the trees in the back yard have been removed or severely trimmed back.  5 trees out, 11 pruned.  The guy who did it all is an artist – you can actually see the branches on the trees, and the neighbors.  So what does it have to do with a post called “Lines & Shades”?  All this disruption messes everything up!  With such disruption – and being unable to leave the house – it was a strange sort of prison.  I read murder mysteries for the most part until yesterday.  It was quiet and no one was home except me and the dogs.

Back to basics.  Pen and ink, contour drawing.  The first one was kind of stiff, but as things moved on, it got easier and more fun.  I wanted to make “lost and found edges” as well, to make things suggested, not spelled out.

I also decided to scan in a value study I did from a photo I took years ago of the Santa Monica River in the mountains nearby, on a hot, dry day.  This is to remind me to follow a more traditional route in painting as my own sense of contrast – light – dark – is not the best.  As you can see, I did it some weeks ago, but I hope to make it into a watercolor in the not too distant future.  The hard part is finding the right color for the sandy river bottom, but I have an idea . . .

94. Gift Bag

Today – clean up the house!  I am still trying to get things organized after the repairs and remodels, which means getting rid of junk, boxes, and putting things back into some sort of order.  It is funny how orderliness can equate with mental and emotional serenity.  This messiness seems to be spilling over into painterly messiness and disorganization and directionlessness.  The end of the school year is also to blame.  Thus, something simple, with lines, and perhaps symbolically, something that can contain something else, but is brings new and pleasant surprises – like found in a gift bag.

Lines, Shapes, Shadows

I had to take a day off from painting as my head was swirling.  This seems to happen whenever I do a lot of any one thing.  My brain feels overloaded and I need to do something to break out of it.  Then it settles down with sometimes clarity or a nagging little sense of something different, good but not completed, if that makes any sense.

Today’s focus – this morning in poor light – I decided to look at white space and dark space.  Neither results are spectacular but what I do see is shapes in this pictures.  Corners outlines, curves, straight edges.  I also like the merging and blending and granulations I see.  Other than that?